Postcards and Proofs 1979–1981 327
France, especially not the French university system: ‘Are things
going to change now? As regards everything to do with teaching and
culture, I am inclined to be as cautious and reserved as possible.’^55
In the United States, Paul de Man was still a peerless ally. In spite of
increasingly explicit resistance, he managed, with the support of J.
Hillis Miller, who was in charge of all matters concerning graduate
students, to renew Derrida’s contract as visiting professor. As was
the case in Oxford and Cambridge, the Department of Philosophy
at Yale did not conceal its hostility to Derrida and the whole wave
of French theory. One of the professors, Ruth Marcus – a pure
positivist and specialist in formal logic – even turned it into a per-
sonal campaign, trying year after year to stop a man she considered
as an impostor from coming to Yale. The violent polemic that set
Derrida against John R. Searle in several issues of the review Glyph
contributed to increased tensions with the proponents of analytical
philosophy.* But deconstruction also had several opponents among
literary scholars, now that its success had made it a threat to tra-
ditionalists. Only departments of comparative literature gave it an
enthusiastic welcome.
It was mainly from a personal point of view that the relation with
Paul de Man had become essential for Derrida, taking over from his
friendships with Michel Monory, Gabriel Bounoure, and Philippe
Sollers. The trust that de Man had placed in him for several years
was of the highest importance to him, and Derrida assured him
that he drew ‘indispensable strength from it’: ‘This has long been
true and is so today more than ever.’^56 Over the following months,
several events would bring the two men even closer together. In spite
of the extreme discretion he maintained, especially about the years
- The row began with the translation of the conference paper ‘Signature event
context’, mainly devoted to John L. Austin, in the fi rst number of the review Glyph:
A Journal of Textual Studies, created by Sam Weber in 1977. In its second issue,
the review published a reply by John R. Searle, ‘Reiterating the diff erences: A reply
to Derrida’, reproaching Derrida in a somewhat self-satisfi ed way for not having
understood Austin and speech-act theory. Derrida reacted with as much violence as
irony in a long article called ‘Limited Inc a b c.. .’. Since Searle had acknowledged
his debt to several of his colleagues, Derrida treated him throughout his text as a
collective entity: ‘In order to avoid the ponderousness of the scientifi c expression
“three + n” authors, I decide here and from this moment on to give the presumed
and collective author of the reply the French name “Société à responsabilité limitée”
- literally, ‘Society with Limited Responsibility’ (or Limited Liability) – which is
normally abbreviated to Sarl.’ This way of conducting the polemic did not cor-
respond to the codes governing university confrontations in America and aroused
lasting resentment. For example, Searle would refuse to allow his text to be reprinted
next to Derrida’s in the volume Limited Inc which gathered all the evidence, fi rst in
the United States (Limited Inc, Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1988 - the above excerpt is on p. 36), then in France (Paris: Galilée, 1990).